Hi and thanks in advance.
I am trying to figure out what’s the key of the following progression. (all major chords)
D – F – C – G
What I’ve tried until now has been laying out the single notes of the triads which makes ( D F# A, F A C, C E G, G B D).
I am having trouble because of the F chord, you could think this as G major (being G (I), C (IV), D (V)) but the F chord just does not fit. Also as we have a major D chord (D F# A), and a C chord (C E G) wich would makes two consecutive semitone jumps (from E to F to F#). Would this make it a non diatonic key?
Thanks!!
I’ve had another listen and I’m of the opinion that this is one of those songs that’s not worth over analysing. It works and sounds great. It’s clearly in D major but with a few twists. The riffs at the end, like you say are just 3,4,5 over each chord. I didn’t hear the root? I might have missed that. Over the C it’s a chromatic run from 3 to 5 (reminds me of the Hey Joe bass riff 🙂 ).
The verse chords, D, A, F has a riff that could possibly be thought of as D phrygian over the D (the b2 being the clue). The riff over the A to F could be anything. I’d personally just think of it as all just D or D phrygian with chord based riffs and avoid scale notes that clash over certain chords.
This is not the kind of genre I know a lot about the common techniques used so somebody else might point out the obvious that I’m missing, but I think there’s not much need to think of it as any more than a song that somebody has just put together and played around with riffs that sounded good.
